Detergent and cleansing compositions intended for use as personal cleansing products not only must exhibit good cleansing and foam characteristics but they must also be non-irritating or have low irritation potential to the skin and the eyes.
Synthetic detergents which are useful in such detergent and cleansing compositions are well known in the art and include anionic, cationic, amphoteric and nonionic detergents or surfactants, as they are usually referred to. The surfactants generally exhibiting the more superior properties in terms of foaming, cleaning and end result attributes are the nonionic detergents. Thus, most detergent and cleansing formulations intended for personal use contain anionic surfactants as one of the active ingredients. These surfactants, however, have a tendency to be very irritating to the skin and the eyes in the levels normally utilized, i.e., above 10% by weight of the total composition. For this reason, detergent compositions intended for personal use containing anionic surfactants are modified by substituting a significant amount of nonionic surfactants which are generally mild although of less effective foaming and cleansing ability. Certain amphoteric surfactants have also been reported to have a low eye irritation potential. Although numerous detergent and cleansing compositions are available commercially, there is still a need for compositions in which irritancy can be substantially eliminated without sacrificing other desired properties such as cleansing and foaming attributes.
Several U.S. patents describe compositions in which both amphoteric and nonionic surfactants are incorporated in detergent compositions containing anionic surfactants. Thus, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,999,069 an 3,055,836 there are described shampoo compositions comprising certain mixtures of ethoxylated anionic, amphoteric and polyethoxylated nonionic surfactants. Further, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,928,251 there are described shampoo compositions comprising certain mixtures of anionic, nonionic and zwitterionic surfactants. Similarly, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,950,417 shampoo compositions are described for which low ocular irritancy is claimed. In these compositions, nonionic and amphoteric surfactants have been added to modify anionic surfactants. All of these compositions include a nonionic surfactant as an essential component as well as an anionic surfactant and as mentioned above, these surfactants have various negatives.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide improved detergent and cleansing compositions.
It is a further object of this invention to provide improved detergent and cleansing compositions which exhibit low irritation potential to the eyes and skin.
It is a further object of this invention to provide improved detergent and cleansing compositions which exhibit good foaming properties including excellent foam stability.
Other objects of this invention will be set forth in or be apparent from the following detailed description of the invention.